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Sunday, September 27, 2015

A TALE OF TWO BOOK REVIEWERS

MY butler -- and then some, Bollero, was so shocked that I'm making another posting in the same month as my previous posting, that he had to be hospitalized. Not only that, but when he learned I was making a second posting immediately following, he had to be rushed to the Intensive Care Unit under heavy medication and placed on a ventilator with a tube down his throat because he had stopped breathing.

Ah, such are the perils of life, but Bollero seems to be making a slow, closely monitored recovery from his "posting" trauma in the hospital. Since Bollero always handled my postings here, I'm going to have to handle these two -- A TALE OF TWO BOOK REVIEWERS and A TALE OF TWO BOOK REVIEWERS II -- myself, so bear with me. It would be of help if you would send flowers to Bollero's room, where psychiatrists are at the ready. He could certainly use the flowers' calming effect.

But on to this posting, which is not so calming. It's original idea was to honor my very good friend, Tracey Alley -- among her enticing novels ERICH'S PLEA and URSULEA'S QUEST -- and my exceptionally good friend, Shane Porteous -- among his compelling novels RACISS and HOW GODS BLEED. Both of these authors, the stars of this posting, have given fantastic reviews of my thriller OF GOOD AND EVIL.

The way I was to honor my two friends was to write a story -- which I did -- that evolved into Shane and Tracey, rather heatedly, not unlike the banjo contest in the movie DELIVERANCE, debating one another as to who had given the best review of OF GOOD AND EVIL.

But when I finished the story I had strong second thoughts about using it. You see, though I had permission from Shane to use him in the story -- sort of like in any way I saw fit, I didn't have such permission from Tracey. I couldn't contact her.

My uncle, Kruger von Griffin, the infamous film Director -- in an odd twist of DNA, he had a strong heritage of German, with little UK ancestry, while I had a strong UK heritage, with little German ancestry, suggested that I use the story in the form of a dream. As he stated, "Who vould hold you accountable for anything dat occurs in a dream? Dreams...your dream, acts vith a force of its own beyond your control, so who can hold you responsible for it? Dat vould get you off der hook vith Tracey."

"Marvelous idea... and solution," I replied, feeling a greatly relieved..

Further, my uncle suggested that instead of making the story just a dream, make it a movie scene dream under his strong-handed direction, with him responsible for how the dream plays out --he dictating what Shane and Tracey will say, how they will say it, what they will do, their expressions and emoting, and so forth, even if none of this is true or accurate in the two author/reviewers' real lives. It's only a dream.

Hearing this further suggestion from my uncle, I felt a certain inner glowing. "Even more marvelous!" I smiled. "Let's go with that."

So, before shooting on location in the dream, my uncle had me read these lines, "As dreams go, this one is a doozie! I dreamt it after falling asleep at a P.T.A meeting."

These lines...my lines, would be the narration heard as a lead in to the movie scene dream action.

Also before shooting, my uncle took Shane and Tracey aside on the movie set in the dream, and said to them, "Ve vant dis scene to be JA JA MOVING, so give it SOME LIFE! Ve don't vant me yelling, 'Cut..Cut..Cut,' so give great performance on der first take! Dat saves money!"

Then Kruger von Griffin shouted, "Everyvone quiet on der set! LIGHTS!...CAMERA!...ACTION!"(The dream scene action begins on the next post -- A TALE OF TWO BOOK REVIEWERS II)